Slava Epstein, a biology professor at Northeastern U. and inventor of the iChip device for cultivating bacteria, says grant reviewers initially told him, “It’s a good idea, a new idea—but Slava, it cannot be that simple.”

By Paul Basken

Boston

Millions of lives worldwide depend on science’s ability to find
new antibiotics. The improvisation and persistence of Northeastern
University’s Slava S. Epstein may now be one of their best
hopes.

For decades, his fellow scientists banged their heads over most
bacteria’s refusal to grow in laboratories. Mr. Epstein, a Russian
émigré biology professor and a nonstop generator of ideas and
energy, simply took another path.